Category: True stories

The youngest experiences I can remember were at Whitley Road. I used to always know that there was something there. I used to sometimes hold my breath and hear deep breathing.

When I was about six years old and Dave was five we were playing in my bedroom and I asked him to hold his breath too. We both heard deep masculine raspy breathing and also scratching at the closed door. Thinking it was Tracey playing a trick on us we opened the door but no one was there. We called out and everyone was downstairs.

The second experience I had that I recall was in the same room and I was maybe nine years old. I awoke at night and I could hear the sound of a what I could only describe as a rocking chair creaking over the other side of my room (there was no such chair in my room), and I was too scared to open my eyes. It felt very threatening and oppressive. The sound got closer and closer. I was petrified. Then just as it was right next to me by my bed it just suddenly stopped.

It only happened that one time thank god!

The house in Whitley Road always felt strange to me. Even in board daylight I would feel like something hostile was there on occasions.

The third experience that sticks out as my biggest was the Spanish beach one.

I was twelve years old and we were on holiday at a key Camp. The one we were staying in was around 200 metres from the beach. It was quite late at night, maybe around 10pm. Dave and I decided to take a walk down to the beach with Barry who was ten years old and the son of the family we had gone on holiday with.

The walk to the beach was down a straight track that had a sort of marsh either side of it with long stem green plants that were about a metre tall. It was a bright night light by a big moon but it was still very dark.

As we approached about three quarters of the walk suddenly there seemed to be a wavering light source around ten metres or so ahead of us floating a foot in the air. I can only describe it as like a vertical reflection of the moon on the water, it was not solid or a whole shape. It hovered briefly before moving to the left and fading/ disappearing into the marsh grass. At this point I believe we had all stopped in our tracks but not a word was spoken between us. As this apparition faded then around 20/30 metres away I could see the torsos of perhaps 5 men which I believe looked as if they were marching towards us. They were only black silhouettes but they were definitely large masculine ones.

I stood open mouthed gawping for a few seconds before turning to run, only to realise that the two boys were already running back ahead of me. I was older than them and a good sprinter at the time so I managed to overtake them on my way back!

When we finally caught our breath we each shared our account of the experience. I don’t remember a great deal of variance other than either one or both boys claimed they had also heard marching and seen many more silhouettes than I had!

My fourth experience was in my Mum’s pub. The Anchor Inn. It is a sixteenth century building that had been used for all sorts of things during it’s time. Dad has also had his own experiences in the building along with multiple other people.

When I moved in with my Mum when I was Fifteen years old I lived in a room in the converted loft space. It had wooden beams and solid wooden doors that closed via an old fashioned latch. There were two bedrooms and a landing space in between them.

I had been there a few weeks when I noticed that my door was often open a few inches in the morning when I woke up. I thought to myself how sweet it was that my Mum was checking on me whilst I slept like she used to when I was a child.

It happened a few more times before I mentioned it in passing. Mum’s face went a bit pale when she assured me that it wasn’t her opening my door.

I went upstairs and closed the door. I pushed and kicked it and gently wiggled it around – nothing would open it from either side other than the latch being properly pressed to release it.

After that it still regularly opened at night and sometimes the sound of the latch flicking off would wake me up. The door was never opened more than a few inches.

Over the years the activity did decrease and it used to reoccur every so often with no pattern that I could distinguish.

My fifth experience I will group under footsteps. I can’t remember when I heard the footsteps in the pub or how many times as they were so frequent!

The pub has three levels. The bar area, the first floor living area and the loft area where my bedroom was.

The first time I heard the footsteps I was sitting in the living room on the second floor and I heard them walk across the landing outside my bedroom. I was already aware that no one was up there and they were so clear with each floorboard creaking under each footstep that they could not have been anything else.

My Mum was very sceptical about paranormal as a lot of people are so she would often dismiss things that happened in the pub. We had a lodger called Dave that stayed in the room opposite me and one evening I was sat in the living room again and as my mum walked past the door the sound of footsteps came from above her. I asked her, ‘Can you hear that Mum?’, she replied, ‘Yes, Dave is up there’. She went downstairs only to return within a very short time and she said to me, ‘Caz, Dave is downstairs’, I replied, ‘I know!’.

Another time I was running the pub and Dave was still lodging. I got up in the morning and as I made my way downstairs from my room I heard footsteps with the usual floorboard creaking below me (the staircase was an L shape so I was unable see the floor beneath me), I called out ‘Good morning Dave’ and continued to walk down the stairs. The footsteps stopped and I suddenly remembered that Dave would have left over an hour earlier to go to work. As I rounded the corner this was confirmed by a totally empty landing and house!

During another time when I was running the pub and Dave was no longer lodging I came home and walked through the bar. As was about to go up to the living accommodation I noticed that the four men in the bar and the barman were all staring at me and were a little subdued. I stopped and smiling said, ‘What?!’, one of them said, ‘ Caz, we have been sat here for the last hour and we have all heard someone running across the landing above the bar, Killer (the barman’s nickname) went up to check and there is no one there!’.

I then had to go up there by myself, luckily nothing else happened that night!

My sixth experiences are a couple of going on’s within the pub.

I went on holiday and during the time I went away my Mum the sceptic woke up to a very large crash from my upstairs landing at about 4am. She went up to check what it was and a large flower vase of mine was broken all over the floor. We had no pets and the vase was in a secure position originally. No windows were opened. We had no problem with rats or mice, Mum was unable to explain how it had come to break.

Another time I was in and heard a loud crash and all of my DVD’s had been pushed from a shelf onto the floor and again there was no explanation.

I was having a late night lock in with around ten of my friends and Ross in the pub whilst I was running it again and it was around 2am when we all witnessed a silhouetted shaped man walk across the doorway of the saloon bar from the main door to the bar. It repeated this a few times of which a majority of the group saw it at the same time. Since then multiple other customers have seen this including my brother Dave. Mum also once excitedly admitted to seeing it one night only to be disappointed when we all said ‘Yeah we’ve all seen that!’.

The flat

My eighth experience is a group one about the Flat.

I believe that I am slightly sensitive to atmospheres and I can often feel things. When we moved into the flat I was aware a lot of the feeling that there was someone in the hallway that would ‘stare’ into the living room. I had not seen anything, it was more that feeling when the temperature changes and you get goose bumps. Ross is sceptical but admitted he felt it too.

Dave and Nika stayed and were freaked out by the flat. While they were here they regularly thought they heard doors opening and a glass candle holder blew out a chunk of glass from the back of it that hit the wall with a lot of force. It was near a plug so this could be debugged.

Dad came over with his Ex-wife Lorraine and she whispered something to him, I asked what she’d said and Dad prompted her and she said, ‘There is a young boy and an elderly man who visit, they are not permanent and they are not related, they pass through sometimes’

Last year I was speaking to my neighbours and they said ‘Your flat is haunted isn’t it?’, I replied,’ How do you know, did I tell you?’, they laughed and replied, ‘No, they are all haunted, there is an old man who died in one of them and he now haunts the whole block.’

He told me that the activity is very great in their flat. They hear footsteps, doors open and close, lights turn on and off and other electrical equipment such as televisions turn on and off. They have also seen a floating face of him and said he has a beard.

Alexia as a baby used to look, smile and wave at someone a lot when she was a baby. A psychic asked me if I had noticed and told me that Nanny wanted me to know it is her visiting.

Once Ross and I simultaneously watched some kind of beautiful floating light go across and up the wall. It was purples, pinks, blues and whites and a foot long. It was quite quick and just vanished into the ceiling. I was happy Ross had seen it too or I would have thought I’d imagined it!

Blake has a friend. I am hoping it is Nanny again but I don’t know. In our living room there is an archway that opens into a small office area. When we are feeding Blake, since he was a tiny baby, he will suddenly stop feeding and turn and stare and sometimes smile and baby talk. It is like someone has called his name to get his attention first. I have been looking at the area and on a number of occasions now I am sure that I can see a shape of someone/something. Recently I also saw a misty haze within it too.

When Dad comes to visit he either brings people with him or people come to see him. Every time he comes over I get a heightened awareness of people in the hallway. It is often at its strongest when we are discussing paranormal events. Sometimes I get a sudden cold feeling and it is tense and other times it is warm and comforting (I believe that one is Nanny with him). If I mention it or sometimes as I feel it he will feel it at the same time and stop and ask a question to whoever is there. They have not been forth coming in communicating with him yet!

A few times during his visits I think I have seen his Aura too. It is bright white and projects an inch or so around him. I have never had this experience with anyone else.

I think that is it! I have also had some white feathers from time to time but nothing significant enough to mention!

OK as Gwyn will confirm, Im not a believer, nor a non believer, I do however remain open minded and I have experienced things that can only be described as “paranormal” in my past, but, I am not religious, so question – what are they?, multi dimensional? or time loops? or indeed “Ghosts”?, .. question remains for me, what are they..?
Anyway.. so … here is a interesting one.. I was walking the dog through a field with a friend today. For some reason I turned around and about 20 meters from us, in the middle of this field , was a man with a shirt and good trousers . In my mind I thought, ‘where did he come from?’, as I hadn’t seen him walk there. He was about mid thirties. He was stood still looking at us. My friend turned around also, I assumed she seen him. We both smiled and turned around and kept walking without discussing it. Probably only 5-10 seconds i felt I needed to look again, i turned around and he had vanished. The field was open , so unless it was Hussein Bolt, its unlikely he dived in a bush that quickly. I asked my friend , “where did he go?” .. to which she replied,, “who?”.. she had not seen him when we had both turned around. “Ghost” in a field that only I could see? I have no explanation…
just thought id share…

This type of haunting is not so rare as you think, hardly gets any mention and is something that most people will never experience. First, let us establish what some think a residual haunting is. A residual haunting, in layman’s terms, is like a recorded tape, which you can rewind and forward, to play the same snippet over and over again, in a loop. In a residual haunting, the apparition is on loop, doing the same things over and over again. They may even do these things at certain times, which explain why some hauntings seem to be triggered or heightened at specific times of the day. It can involve multiple apparitions and whole scenes out of history replaying itself. But it is also known by S.P.I. as a ghost or ghosts, it cannot communicate and indeed is a playback in it’s own time although at times it can most certainly be heard, always reoccurring. One of the most famous cases of a residual historical haunting is the “Versailles Time Slip.” This occurred in August of 1901, while Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain were touring Versailles. They both experienced intense feelings, then they discover themselves walking among people dressed like they were in 18th century Paris. Everything seemed to turn unworldly at this point and Moberly even thought she witnessed Marie Antoinette, sitting on the grass, sketching. It was over as quickly as it started.Another case was Dunkirk, it has been experienced by the few, whilst walking the beach to suddenly be in the battle, gunshot, planes flying over shooting soldiers across the beach. As quick as it started it all disappeared.

Another case was four children playing at dusk on a beach in Spain. To get to this particular beach you had to walk the stoney path between 6ft marsh reeds either side. As they came to the end of the path they heard what sounded like men marching, as they looked on a troop of Romans turned the corner and headed towards them. The children ran but one looked back and could describe clearly what she had seen, she contined to run and joined the others. They all looked back and there was no sign of the army.

I can believe this experience as this was my daughter and her friends, some years ago whilst on holiday.

After years of following my Dad around the world ( he was in the army ) . We finally settled in Gosport to be closer to my mums mum and dad .

My Dad brought a little house in a little street just of Forton road . The year was 1973 .

On the day we moved in , my sisters and I were very excited . A new house , a new life , a permanent base .

It all started a few weeks after moving in . Lights would turn off and on by them selves , doors would open and curtains would blow in wards when no windows were open . Then nightmares , something I was not accustomed to .

One night I felt someone run their hand up the side of my body , starting from my foot to my head . At first I thought it was my little sister , so I shouted for her to get back into bed . I looked up and saw that she was in bed sleeping , but over by the window was a man wearing a black fur coat …..

Over the next few months other things started to happen . Clothes on the airer would have burn marks in them , things would fly out of the cupboards and things would go missing .

One night my sister and I were woken up in the night by soft thumping sounds . We looked up to see my sister’s tennis balls being thrown up against the side wall of our bedroom ( my mum had already started leaving the stair light on and our room doors ajar ) .

After about a year in the house things started to worsen . My sister woke up screaming in pain one night , my mum and dad came running into our room . My sister was screaming ” get it off , get it off ” , she was holding her side , ” its the crocodile ” she screamed . ” its biting me ” . Mum thought she was just having yet another nightmare , she lifted my sisters nightdress and saw what looked like bit marks around her middle , they were bleeding …..

Always the man in the fur coat was by the window smiling …..

My mums health had started to suffer and she had to go into hospital for kidney surgery , my dad was in Germany , so my sisters and I went to live with my nan and grandad just down the road .

All the nightmares stopped and nothing bad happened at my Nans , my sisters and I became the happy care free children we once were .

A few short weeks later , my mum had recovered and we went back to that house . That night the man in the fur coat was there telling us how he missed us ….

He got nasty again and would throw things at us , bite us and growl at us …

One morning , we were all getting ready for school , my mum told us she was going down stairs to start breakfast . My sisters and I were all in our room . Mum screamed and the we heard her falling down the stairs . We ran to the banisters and looked down at mum sitting on the bottom stair . She looked so angry, and asked which one of us pushed her . We told her we were altogether in the room and that we didn’t push her . It was then that mum saw for the first time the man in the fur coat , he was standing behind us on the top of the stairs .

We moved not long after that and never had any problems again .

This all happened 43 years ago . It is one of the most traumatic times of my life . Some bits I have left out as I find it to difficult to write it down . As an adult , looking back at the man in the fur coat , I realise he wasn’t a man at all , but a boy in his teenage years .

The strange thing is , on the day we moved into that house , the kids next-door told us that we wouldn’t live there for very long , because nobody ever does !

Experiences with the supernatural in old houses are not exclusive to male actors. The beautiful Susannah York, who came to public notice exuding sexuality in Tom Jones (1963) and participated in a controversial nude lesbian scene in The Killing of Sister George (1968), physically bumped into the supernatural while playing Margaret More in A Man For All Seasons I (1966). She explained:

“My husband, Michael Wells and I were looking for a new home. One of our friends owned a rambling, sixteenth-century mansion in Essex. He wanted to sell it and invited us to go and look over it with him and, if necessary, stay a few days to get the feel of the place. So Michael and I went there after a day’s filming and arrived about eleven at night. It looked marvellous, just the sort of home we were looking for. One of the most attractive features was a moat surrounding the house – on which some black swans were swimming – and a drawbridge that provided the only access to it.”

When Susannah and Michael went to bed that night they were convinced they had found their dream home. Somewhere they could literally pull up the drawbridge and keep the world at bay. But about 3 am. Susannah sat bolt upright in bed:

“I had no idea what had awakened me, but I felt so wide awake that I got up and went out into the long corridor off which all the bedrooms led. Suddenly this awful feeling crept over me. I couldn’t see anything or anyone, but I had the feeling that some other force was present. I was unable to move. I just stood there scared out of my wits. I tried to scream for Michael, but I fainted. I learned later that I fell and knocked over a vase and the clatter awoke my husband. He carried me back to our room, but it took him over half an hour to revive me.”

By the following morning Susannah had decided she must have had a bad dream. She and her husband were still keen on buying the house and decided they would return during the next break from filming.

Again they returned at night – and once more Susannah grew edgy and irritable:

“Suddenly, I knew what was bothering me. It was the moat. I realized the drawbridge was the only way in and out. I had a horrible thought of being trapped in the house with the drawbridge not working – and having to jump from the window into the moat with the black swans. We left the place immediately and later Michael telephoned the owner to tell him why we did not want to buy it. When he explained why, the owner said, “Susannah must have met the ghost. It’s the ghost of a girl who was trapped in the house when the drawbridge wouldn’t work. She jumped from a window into the moat and was drowned…’”

We are often recognised when the team is out and about and many individuals approach us to speak of their own experiences. One I can recall was a lovely, elderly and very private man.

He was in the house with his wife this particular evening and as he ventured into the kitchen he saw their good friend Mrs X standing there smiling at him, he turned and looked towards his wife and then back to the kitchen again but she had gone. He then told his wife what he had seen. This happened at 7.30pm.

The next morning the phone rang to tell them the sad news that Mrs X had passed away last night at 7.30pm.

As written by Peter Haining in 2007, sadly passing from this plain shortly after finishing his book True Hauntings.

1.

Bob Hoskins, a pillar of the British cinema industry, who has made an international reputation from playing a diversity of roles from the Fascist dictator, Mussolini, in Mussolini and I (1985) to the straight man to a group of cartoon characters in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) also came to screen after a variety of jobs including filing clerk, accountant, labourer and picking mangoes and bananas in Israel.

One provided him with an experience he has never forgotten – as told by Jim Crace of the Sunday Telegraph:

“ When I was a lad I took a job as a porter at the old Covent Garden market. I was shifting some vegetables one evening when I saw a shadowy figure. It was a ghost – the ghost of a nun from the convent that the market was built on. I told this old porter about it, but he didn’t laugh at me. He said, “ Your privileged, son. You’ve seen the lady – your going to have a lucky life.” He was dead right, wasn’t he? I’ve seen the lady and I’m leading a lucky life.”

Sadly BOB passed away last week in the early month of May 2014. He will be missed greatly by all.

My father-in-law passed away in hospital after a short illness. Two nights later I had a dream of him walking towards me, so I approached him. It was a desolate area with a well built shed between us, as we neared the shed he said to me quietly, “it’s ok Cliff, I am alright”.

At the time there was no importance attached to this dream, but now some fifty odd years later I do wonder?

The reason of a well built shed in the dream, I can only say he had just retired from work as a fully indentured carpenter and joiner. He had built a workshop in his back garden and his plans were to continue privately with his trade in his retirement.